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News from the Library of Congress

Contact: Guy Lamolinara (202) 707-9217

May 3, 1999

More Than 50 Collections Now Available On-Line from
the Library of Congress

Jefferson, Jazz Age and Animation
Are Latest Offerings

The National Digital Library Program of
the Library of Congress has released three
new collections of on-line materials,
bringing to 53 the number of collections
covered by the American Memory Web site,
accessible at www.loc.gov.

In this first release of "The Thomas
Jefferson Papers" users can access
correspondence dating from 1621 through
1789 and materials relating to Virginia
history, from 1606 to 1737. This project
is funded by Reuters America Inc. and the
Reuter Foundation, which is also funding
the electronic version of the George
Washington Papers, a portion of which are
already on-line.

The
Thomas Jefferson Papers are housed in
the Manuscript Division of the Library,
along with the papers of 22 other
presidents, ranging from George Washington
to Calvin Coolidge. This is the largest
collection of original Jefferson documents
in the world and includes his rough draft
of the Declaration of Independence.

More than 1,600 photographs of many of the
greatest names in jazz are available in
"William
P. Gottlieb: Photographs from the
Golden Age of Jazz." The William P.
Gottlieb Collection documents the jazz
scene from 1938 to 1948, primarily in New
York City and Washington, D.C. In 1938
Gottlieb began working for The Washington
Post, where he wrote and illustrated a
weekly jazz column -- perhaps the first in
a major newspaper. After World War II he
was employed as a writer-photographer for Down Beat magazine, and his work also
appeared frequently in Record Changer, the Saturday Review and Collier's. During the
course of his career, Gottlieb took
portraits of prominent jazz musicians and
personalities, including Louis Armstrong,
Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Billie
Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Hines,
Thelonious Monk, Stan Kenton, Ray
McKinley, Benny Goodman, Coleman Hawkins,
Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Carter. This on-line
collection presents Gottlieb's
photographs, annotated contact prints,
selected published prints and related
articles from Down Beat.

"The
Origins of American Animation" traces
the development of early American
animation in 21 animated films and two
fragments, which span the years 1900 to
1921. The films include clay, puppet and
cutout animation, as well as pen drawings.
They point to a connection between
newspaper comic strips and early animated
films, as represented by "Keeping Up With
the Joneses," "Krazy Kat" and "The
Katzenjammer Kids." In addition to showing
the development of animation, these films
also reveal some of the social attitudes
of early 20th century America.

The goal of the National Digital Library
(NDL) Program of the Library of Congress
is to make available, in collaboration
with other institutions, 5 million items
by 2000, the Bicentennial of the Library
of Congress (http://www.loc.gov/bicentennial).
The NDL Program is one of the Library's
birthday "gifts to the nation."

This NDL Program public-private
partnership has raised more than $45
million in private money to digitize
important American historical collections.
The U.S. Congress has pledged $15 million
to the effort.